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Finding a Wedding Officiant

It’s been a long, weird road, but we finally have our officiant booked.

The search began about 6 months ago. I was feeling overwhelmed with planning and assigned Joey the task of finding a wedding officiant. Our only requirements were that they perform a non-religious ceremony and that we could write our own vows. For us, our wedding will be a celebration of our relationship and a commitment to the future with each other. I thought I had given Joey the easiest task available.

He contacted Denise at Perfect Day Celebrations. He asked her to email us specific information. She only sent us some information he had asked for and not all. We agreed that when people don’t follow simple instructions that it could be a bad sign. We decided to contact someone else. For reasons unknown it took Joey a couple of months to find another officiant. He set up a meeting with Eileen from Down the Aisle Ceremonies. She sent us a form to fill out about each other to bring to our meeting. The day before we met, she emailed him to confirm that we were still meeting. It annoyed me that she lived in Milford and would not meet us halfway. We live in Livonia, and with the bad weather, it took us about 45 minutes to get to Milford. We arrived early and waited in the parking lot of her husband’s dental practice. We waited about 15 minutes past our appointment time before we left. No call, no show, never to be heard from again.

I was eager to get this task over with but the holidays were quickly approaching, so we decided to wait until after New Year’s to meet with another person. In January we met with a guy who was just way too big of a weirdo for my taste. I’m weird and I like weird but this was just over the top. He felt the need to tell us about his kidney stones for about 20 minutes, and when I tried to change the subject to wedding talk, he interrupted me and said “hiiiiiiiii.” ??? I swear this shit only happens to us. After the second time he said “hiiiiii” I was pretty sure this guy was going to kill me later. We were running out of time for this particular task and I was so worn out by the process of finding someone that I still thought about hiring him. I told Joey that I would sleep on it and when I woke up the answer was a very firm “No.”

I found a group in West Bloomfield who will perform the ceremony for the low, low price of $800. HAHAHAHAHAHA bye.

Exasperated, I weighed my options. I know two people (plus Joey) who are ordained and could technically perform the ceremony. Could I trust them to run a dress rehearsal and get our marriage license mailed? No. I considered asking our best man’s mom to become ordained and perform the ceremony because she means a lot to us, she is responsible, and she works at a church so she would probably be familiar with the order of the processional. As I was researching how we could get her ordained if we asked her, I came across information that stated that a person who is Catholic may not become ordained by a non-Catholic church and may not perform a ceremony for non-Catholic people. Do you notice how much work I have been doing on a task that I gave to Joey?

We contacted the original person, Denise, to see if she was still available on our wedding date. She asked for the time of our ceremony because she had a wedding scheduled for earlier in the day already. “I will get right back to you.” Never heard from her again. WHAT IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE?????????????? These people are not to be left to their own devices! Running an efficient business isn’t for everyone, clearly.

Finally, before I committed an act of violence on someone, we were able to meet with Danealle from Ceremonies of Love. She was nice and she likes to write so we booked her right away. The process has been a complete nightmare and I am so thankful it is over.